In the latter half of the keynote there was one small piece for developers, showing off Expression Interactive Designer (which integrates nicely with ASP.NET and VS.NET) and the new Visual Studio 2005 Team System For Database Professionals, which they have about 4,000 cds with the first CTP bits on them that will be handed out later today.  ...

I've recently been learning more about code snippets in VS 2005, and I've found some nice resources online.  Basically, if you haven't done anything with Code Snippets, they are a simple, extensible way for you to perform a relatively complex task within the IDE with just a few keystrokes.  For example, let's say you want to write a ...

The next DevConnections conference will be held April 2-5, 2006 in Orlando, Florida at the Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress Resort (where it has been a couple of times in recent years -- very nice hotel).  I will be hosting three sessions, and for the first time I'll have two sessions in the Visual Studio Fundamentals Track (normally I'm strictly ...

Enterprise Library for .NET Framework 2.0 is now available.  It includes the Caching Application Block, Cryptography Application Block, Data Access Appliation Block, Exception Handling Application Block, Logging Application Block and Security Application Block.  Definitely worth checking out. From the website: The patterns & ...

The ASPInsiders were just introduced to an upcoming and as-yet-unannounced addin for Visual Studio 2005 that should ship with or close to RTM.  The feature is called Web Deployment Projects, and will extend VS 2005's capabilities for building and deploying ASP.NET web projects.  VS 2005 did away with web project files, and there has ...

I was lucky enough to attend a few Birds of a Feather sessions at PDC05, including one hosted by Julia Lerman on Going Solo.  At many of these, the time goes by very quickly and many of the attendees have additional questions for the host or for one another that must go unanswered.  Further communication is usually limited to a few ...

Soma announces Visual Studio 2005 RC1 and Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server (TFS) Beta 3 will be released in September.  The Beta 3 will feature a Go Live license, so organizations can immediately begin using the Team System features.  Release of TFS is slated for the first quarter of 2006, and all data in the Beta 3 edition will ...